Residents of the Mulholland scenic corridor are being urged to help prevent wildfires.

On Monday the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, the management and open space acquisition agency for the Santa Monica Mountains between the 405 Freeway and Griffith Park, introduced new signage to encourage local residents to use a fire tip hotline.

"We're really pushing into the neighborhoods and trying to get that community involvement," MRCA Senior Fire Management Officer David Updike said before the sign unveiling ceremony at Fryman Canyon Park's Nancy Hoover Pohl Overlook.

"The community can be our eyes and ears where we can't be at all times, and they'll alert us to certain problems that we can try to help."

The signs, about 100 of which are up or soon will be throughout the area, urge residents and others to report suspicious activity to Ranger Services at (310) 456-7049. Beside the MRCA Rangers, the Los Angeles Fire Department and other firefighting units will also receive notifications.

In addition, area residents are being mailed postcards with the hotline number and other fire prevention tips.

"It's a low-cost addition to the program we already have," said MRCA Director of Natural Resources and Planning Paul Edelman. "With fire prevention, anytime you make a difference with a new tool, you end up having a very substantial change."

The morning press conference had a slight air of counterintuitiveness against a backdrop of gray skies. After a scorching summer, on Monday the marine layer spread thick inland to Laurel Canyon, and there were predictions of rain later in the week.

But don't let that fool you.

"Even if we do get a little rain this week, that doesn't matter at all because we're coming up to the hottest time of the fire season, which is in November," said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who lives on the east end of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Updike pointed out that the current fuel moisture percentage chart, which measures the combustibility of the local chaparral, chamise and other brush, is currently in the low 50s.

"Sixty percent is the critical limit, anything dropping below that falls into a large potential fire gain as far as acreage," Updike added. "Any rain we have in October is typically followed by a heat wave and then some sort of a wind event, like a Santa Ana."

Orrin Feldman, vice president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council, seemed to sum up the message.

"Don't get complacent," Feldman said. "There's no way that fire isn't a 365-day-a-year concern in this neighborhood."